


my way home (is through you)

by phylocalist



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, M/M, Minor Violence, Superhero Yuri Plisetsky, Villian Otabek Altin, slight ambigous/open ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 10:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20357119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phylocalist/pseuds/phylocalist
Summary: The more Otabek sees the boy around him, the more something grows in his chest. It starts to stretch its’ sticky tendrils into his hands and fills them with emptiness, makes him desperate to stretch out and grab Yuri by the hood of his jacket and pull him close.He has never been a lacking person, everything was always at his fingertips, but suddenly the more he stares at Yuri’s eyes, the more empty his feel. There is something there that Otabek is desperate to grab hold of, but Yuri is always so far away.So Otabek devises a plan to get closer.





	my way home (is through you)

**Author's Note:**

> hello! it has Been A While, but here is the fic i got to write for the yoi super zine: brighter skies/the inferno! i was part of the supervillian side and i had the pleasure of collaborating with [rotenkehl](https://rotenkehl.tumblr.com)! (link to their art will be added when/if they post it). it was a wonderful zine experience and i'm so glad to have been able to contribute to it!
> 
> this fic was beta'd by [lou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/louciferish) and i'd like to thank her very much bc she did a wonderful job helping me cut out some words and pointing out my mistakes. <3
> 
> title is from "my way home is through you" by my chemical romance, which i think fits otabek's character very well in this.
> 
> content warning for mild violence near the end of the fic.

A pair of soft, gentle hands intrigue him. A smile that’s not exactly a smile, sharp teeth and tight corners screaming danger, entice him. A pair of jewel-shiny, emerald eyes that stand steel-backed and soldier-like, change him.

A boy, blonde hair and kind heart, ultimately becomes Otabek’s demise.

*

It starts with a motorcycle ride.

Otabek’s life is full of monotony, and the only way he has been allowed to break that monotony is by taking impromptu rides on his motorcycle. He always excuses himself by saying he’s stopping by the family’s stores, making sure everything is either steadily staying the same or slowly rising up. _ They’re part of my work_, he’ll say to his parents. _ They help me familiarize myself with the business I will take over one day_.

Mostly, though, he spends his time exploring the serpentine hidden streets of Saint Petersburg and getting himself into alleyways and dead ends. He spends very little time in the stores and only oversees the workers for a small period of time. He has no desire to get more involved with the family business than he already is, his veins running hot with the need to _ get out there _ and away from the suffocating space full of star-like manufactured jewels.

Otabek’s coming out of a mall after inspecting a store, shoulders heavy with the weight of his family’s empire, when he first sees _ him_.

He stands out, because a head full of blonde hair always does, and because he’s the cleanest-looking thing in a 5 mile radius aside from Otabek. He’s wearing a warm-looking jacket, very appropriate for the current weather and surely what Otabek should be wearing instead of a leather jacket. But, as Otabek watches, the kid takes off his weather-appropriate jacket and places it on top of someone else’s shoulders instead, leaving himself in a mere t-shirt.

It doesn’t even look like the person he’s giving the jacket to is a friend or someone he knows. The person now wearing the jacket is sitting on top of a piece of cardboard on the floor just around the corner of the mall. They create a very striking contrast with the blonde boy because they’re dirty and ragged, like they live on the street.

The thought doesn’t even occur to Otabek until he makes the comparison, because he’s not used to seeing people living on the streets. He is not used to people not living in big houses with green lush backyards and at least 3 dogs at a time. He is not used to people not traveling in Lexus cars with tinted windows that hide the identity of the people inside. He is not used to anything outside his bubble, he realizes now, as he unabashedly stares. The blonde boy shakes his head and pats the homeless person’s shoulder, saying something that Otabek cannot decipher at this distance.

The boy glances over his shoulder, like he’s sensed Otabek’s stare, and Otabek comes face to face with the greenest pair of eyes he’s ever seen. He thinks of the pair of earrings adorned with tsavorite garnet that the store he’s just come out of sold while he was there, the precious stones shining in the fluorescent lights of the store and almost burning with the intensity of the green they showed.

Lost in his thoughts, he doesn’t realize how long he stands there, until suddenly the blonde boy hands some containers with something that looks like food to the homeless person, then turns sharply in his direction, brows deeply furrowed and eyes on fire.

_ Alexandrite has the quality to change its color from green to red in different lightning_, Otabek’s brain supplies, like an afterthought.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, _ gopnik_?” The boy says, aggressive words spitting out from his mouth. Otabek frowns and looks down at himself quickly. He doesn’t look like a _ gopnik_, does he? “You having fun watching homeless people get help? Is it a fetish of yours or something? Like it is taking money from people who _ actually need it _ just to make yourself richer?” He keeps talking, and he’s so fast and precise with his words that Otabek almost can’t keep up.

Otabek swallows and wipes some invisible dust from his shoulder. “No, I was just—” he stops mid-sentence, because he realizes he doesn’t even know what he was doing. He shakes his head, suddenly embarrassed. “I’m sorry I have disturbed your day.”

The boy scoffs and hugs himself. “You have disturbed my day alright, just by existing.”

Otabek cocks his head as he watches the blonde boy start to shiver slightly, though he’s very obviously trying to hide it. He isn’t doing a very good job. Otabek starts to take off his jacket, thinking about the other one he’s got in the trunk of his motorcycle, but the boy startles him with a pointed laughter.

“Don’t bother, I would never take anything from the likes of you,” he says and uncrosses his arms, fighting the shivers Otabek can see are trying to wreck his body. He narrows his eyes and snarls as he says, with finality, “I’d rather freeze to death.”

Otabek has no option but to stand there and watch as the blonde boy walks away from him, slightly shivering as he rubs his arms with his hands, and disappears around the corner.

_ Well_, he thinks as he puts his jacket back on and starts walking to his motorcycle. He doesn’t take notice of the slight smile stretching his lips. _ That certainly broke the monotony_.

*

It’s funny how, when we’re unaware of someone’s existence, they blend into the background to become merely an indistinct blur of color; but when we suddenly find out about them, take their features and mannerisms into ourselves, they start appearing everywhere.

Otabek sits on the foot of his bed, facing his big flat-screen, as one of the thousands of news channels plays in it. The boy is there. He’s _ there_, in _ the news_, unmistakable by his bright blonde head of hair and the garnet green in his eyes.

Otabek is not the kind of person who watches the news regularly, but his father does, and he’d never noticed the boy appearing in them before—that is, until this morning. Breakfast was uneventful each morning, a silent meal shared by his parents, his little sister and him, and the boy had once again come barreling through into Otabek’s life to break the monotony that governs it.

_ Yuri Plisetsky_, the reporter had said as she pointed at the big wall of graffiti art behind her depicting the blonde boy in what seemed to be in some sort of hero’s costume, and Otabek had choked on his cereal.

“Beka?” Saniya had said, turning from the book she had splayed on her lap. There was an amused smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth, but she fended it off. “Are you okay?”

Otabek had cleared his throat, slightly embarrassed and avoiding his parents’ reprimanding stares. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Saniya had laughed, a small airy giggle, and Otabek had kicked her shin under the table in retaliation.

Otabek lets himself fall back onto the bed, his arms splayed wide to his sides. He sighs. _ Yuri Plisetsky_, he thinks, rolling the name around in his head where it has already begun to occupy space that it hasn’t been given yet. _ Yuri Plisetsky_.

_ Yuri Plisetsky_, he thinks for the third time and something tightens in his chest. Otabek cocks his head.

Interesting.

*

The more Otabek sees the boy around him, the more something grows in his chest. It starts to stretch its’ sticky tendrils into his hands and fills them with emptiness, makes him desperate to stretch out and grab Yuri by the hood of his jacket and pull him close.

He has never been a lacking person, everything was always at his fingertips, but suddenly the more he stares at Yuri’s eyes, the more empty his feel. There is something there that Otabek is desperate to grab hold of, but Yuri is always so far away.

So Otabek devises a plan to get closer—hopefully close enough to feel the heat from the fire emanating from Yuri’s eyes and warm up the ice he feels rattling around in his ribcage.

He orders a suit from his family’s modist. It’s nylon spandex and completely black, made mostly to blend into the shadows, and the modist gives him a preoccupied look when Otabek’s eyes shine as he takes it out of her hands.

He takes it out for a test run that night. He gets into at least five fights, two which include a switchblade being swung around by the other party, and he gets at least three cuts on his suit. When he takes it off at home, he inspects it. It’s not unusable, but definitely could be improved on.

Two days after, Otabek walks up to the modist’s shop armed with a new pattern and new requirements.

It goes on like this—new suit, test run, improvements, new suit—for a few weeks. His father shoots him surprised looks when he actually starts paying attention to the news in the morning. Saniya is curious, like she always is, but she seems to trust him more than anyone in his family ever does. No one bothers him or asks him what those goofy looking suits he’s been asking the family modist are for, because that’s how his family works, and as long as his grades don’t drop his parents won’t bat an eyelash at him.

Every night, he goes out to find some people to target. He starts to go for the homeless more often, because he knows those are people Yuri cares about—and it’s all about him, in the end.

Otabek leaves a trail behind himself, breadcrumbs that are designed to catch Yuri’s attention, and he immediately notices when Yuri catches onto the trail. He can see the pattern in the sightings of the blonde boy, how they start following the trail of destruction Otabek has left behind himself, and Otabek’s heart soars.

That night, the modist hands him the latest version of his suit, the masterpiece that he has created after countless weeks testing and improving. It’s durable, doesn’t slice open with the cut of a blade, and he feels _ powerful _once it’s on.

He wreaks havoc.

Saint Petersburg is a big city, and there are always things to break and to destroy. Otabek is fearless, a dark figure that merges with the shadows and only surfaces to the light to create more destruction, knowing he’s entirely untouchable. He’s _ invincible_.

Yuri is coming, he knows. He isn’t someone that would idly sit by as his city and the people in it get destroyed. He’s coming for Otabek, and it’s the moment that Otabek’s been waiting for for months. He’s been empty and cold for so long, but now Yuri is coming and that will all change.

He shatters the window of an electronics’ shop with his fist, the glass raining down around him and glittering in the streetlights like a cascade of diamonds.

_ I will be waiting for you, Yuri. _

*

“What. The fuck. Do you think. You’re doing?” Yuri growls in his face, his eyes alight with fire in a way Otabek is sure he should find dangerous, but that only serves to draw him in even further.

Otabek doesn’t know what was the last straw. Everything had been slowing down for a few days, the sightings of Yuri around town lessening the harder Otabek tried to attract him out—and then, suddenly, he had found himself pinned to the wall of some alley with Yuri’s forearm against his neck.

In truth, he could easily slip out. All those years of self-defense training had finally paid off to help him know how to fight, but he didn’t really want to. This was exactly what he had wanted, to have Yuri close to him, feel the fire burning inside him and refracting across the city. He wanted to _ be there_, see for himself how brightly he shone in hopes of taking some of it inside himself.

“I—I…” Otabek stutters.

Yuri’s eyebrows draw closer together. “I’m fucking tired of you. I don’t know what it is that you were trying to achieve by destroying all of those houses and stores and injuring all those people, but if it was a lesson then you’re gonna get it.”

And then, in a flash, Otabek is on the floor.

Yuri moves so quickly that Otabek doesn’t even have time to fight back, all of those moves he learnt in self-defense classes rendered useless against a target that is not only stronger than him, but quicker on his feet. He suddenly feels small in comparison to Yuri: a mere black spot in the shiny, clean surface of Yuri’s existence.

He gets shoved against the wall again, one of Yuri’s hands around his face and the other securing his arm.

“Nothing to say for yourself, huh?” Yuri says, and he sounds almost triumphant.

“I wanted to meet you,” Otabek blurts out.

Yuri’s expression changes in a second, the cockiness of before completely replaced by utter confusion. Otabek feels the hand around his face lessen its pressure, and he quickly maneuvers himself to get out of Yuri’s hold, utilizing his minute advantage to free himself.

He’s panting once he’s put enough distance between himself and Yuri. He rubs at the corner of his mouth where he can feel a trail of something wet dripping out and his hand turns back red.

“You _ what_?!” Yuri asks, incredulous.

Otabek swallows and relaxes slightly, but doesn’t drop his defensive stance. “I wanted to be closer to you. And you came.”

“Are you—?” Yuri shakes his head. “Are you _ serious_, dude?”

Otabek simply nods.

“You—You hurt _ homeless _ people! You destroyed stores and buildings and _ homes_!” Yuri says, his voice raising with each word until he’s speaking in an unbelievable and desperate yell.

“I can fix them. I have the money for it.”

“This is not a _ money _ problem!” Yuri yells. He takes one step towards Otabek and Otabek mirrors it by taking one step back. “Those are _ people_! You put them in the hospital and took away their homes; you can’t just _ fix _ that with money!”

Otabek’s head is swimming, and he thinks maybe he took one too many blows. He should’ve been more careful, knowing Yuri is inhumanly strong, but he was blinded. Yuri spends a few moments in silence after all that yelling, like he’s contemplating things, and Otabek gets to see the exact moment his anger returns anew—like putting a green alexandrite under artificial light and watching it turn bright red.

Otabek feels the blow of Yuri’s knee against his stomach before he even sees it, and gets one quick look to Yuri’s eyes, alight with determination and anger. They’re a deep, bright green that looks almost dangerous to Otabek’s survival instincts, but the fire he can see burning deep within Yuri is warm and inviting. He’s _ so alive_.

_ This is why people look up to you_, Otabek thinks, stumbling back onto his feet. _ We all just want a taste of the life you have inside you. _

He coughs, metallic liquid climbing up his throat and onto his hand. Yuri seems to notice, and his eyes soften, but they’re conflicted. He walks up to Otabek again and grabs him by the throat. Otabek just lets it happen this time, too worn out to fight back.

“You know, you don’t have to do this. It doesn’t have to be this way,” Yuri says, and his voice is almost pleading.

Otabek looks up into Yuri’s eyes, deep green tainted with confusion and concern, and he swallows down the blood accumulated in his mouth. His vision is swimming.

“What do you mean?” He croaks out.

“You don’t have to _ hurt people _ to get to know me. That’s not—that’s not a thing you should do, _ ever_.” Yuri shakes his head as he speaks.

Otabek stops for a moment. He has nothing more valuable than his money, and it was ultimately the thing that brought him this close to Yuri; without the things he did, Yuri would’ve never come to him. He doesn’t have the drive or the skill to be a hero, or whatever Yuri is, had lived the last few months of his life shrouded in shadows and learning destruction.

But, maybe, just as he learnt destruction, he could learn how to undo it.

Yuri’s eyes are intense when they meet Otabek’s, an encouragement trying to ignite a spark of change. His hand has gone lax around Otabek’s throat, mostly serving as support for Otabek rather than choking him out of his air. He seems hopeful.

Otabek knows hope as a foreign thing, something that he was never quite able to properly grasp. He wraps a hand around Yuri’s wrist.

No matter his answer, at least Yuri will always be his hope now.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on [**twitter**](https://twitter.com/phylocalist)!


End file.
